Discourse
by Milk and Glass
Summary: A fun Mark/Callie one-shot request. Mark and Callie take an early-morning walk.


It's cool – the type of cool that happens in an early-morning forest

It's cool – the type of cool that happens in an early-morning forest. Because it's the West Coast and because the air is always salted by the sea, fog hangs heavily in torn scarves around the tall, cathedral-like trees. Callie loves it. She loves it to the point of heart-bursting. Even though she was raised in Arizona, in the hot desert and the staticky dry desert winds, she can't get over how she can walk for hours and not even break a sweat on cold days like this.

Mark, on the other hand, hates all things natural. "I have no idea why you dragged me up here."

"Because you're getting chubby and I don't want to date a fat guy?"

"Ha, ha. Seriously, Callie. We could be sitting at the coffee shop, enjoying a latte, maybe a croissant . . .?"

"Nah. I hate breakfast pastries."

"Even biscotti? I don't know anyone who hates a nice biscotti and a hot latte with extra foam . . ."

"Whatever. Pick up the pace; I have to keep stopping to wait for you."

"My shoes are getting ruined. I better not be stepping in deer poop."

"Why do you think you'd be stepping in deer poop? If you were a deer, would you poop on an open trail?"

"If I were a deer, I'd be sleeping in a nice cave or something and not walking at seven in the morning."

"If I were a deer, I'd be kicking you in the head to make you stop complaining."

"Oh, come on. Like you wouldn't love a really nice breakfast right about now."

"For a guy who's so classy, you're really obsessed with food."

"Because you wouldn't let me eat before you dragged me out here!"

"And that was for a reason. Because we're trying to take in the fresh air. You bitch constantly about not being able to breathe. So, breathe in the air. Do it."

"Are you seriously going to stare at me until I take a deep breath? Do you want to whip out your scope and have a little listen to my heart too?"

"No, I don't care that much about you losing weight."

"Thank God for that."

"Mark, hurry up!"

"We're walking up a hill, Callie. Last I checked, I wasn't ten years old and able to just skip up a huge incline."

"Last I checked, you weren't dead, either. You should be able to keep up the pace on a little incline in the landscape."

"So now a mountain is a little incline?"

"It's not a mountain. We're at sea level, Mark."

"Whatever. Call it what you want."

"Okay, I'll call it what it is – it's a hill."

"Yeah. A hill about two thousand feet up."

"Right."

"Can we stop for a moment? I have a stone in my shoe."

"Fine."

Callie slows the pace and Mark takes off one of his tasseled loafers. "Damn, I wish you'd told me we were walking today. I would have brought my tennis shoes."

"You own tennis shoes?"

"Yes. I like to jog along Central Park in New York."

"Okay, jogging and you?" Callie snorts.

"Is that so hard to believe?"

"Yes, frankly, it is."

"Well, fine. But let me tell you, if I didn't run, I wouldn't be this hot."

"Okay. I'm not stroking your ego. Let's go."

"Are we almost at the top?"

"What I don't get is why you keep bitching. It's not that bad, we've been out about twenty minutes."

"I'm hungry and tired."

"You can't enjoy this time with me?"

"Are you guilt-tripping me?"

"Maybe a little."

"Of course I enjoy this time with you. I'd enjoy it more if we were somewhere warm."

"So, take me to Mexico."

"Only if you stop making fun of my surgeries."

"Well, you tell me the reasons why rearranging someone's face for no reason isn't funny and I'll stop laughing."

"So, why is that funny and breaking bones for a living isn't?"

"Maybe because people can't walk if I don't reset their hips?"

"Fair enough."

"Okay, whiny, here we are at the top. Happy now?"

Mark stops and turns on the spot, the woods falling away from his feet, the glimmer of the grey sea in the distance and the silver world below. The dark-haired woman beside him is rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, and he pulls her to him, slinging an arm around her shoulder, turning her face to his.

"Absolutely."

When he kisses her, warmth spreads from his stomach all over his body.

"Are you still cold?"

He hugs her closer to him.

"Not anymore."


End file.
